The Malik Report

Howard was in getting treatment and said he has fluid on his knee and that he didn’t think the injury was as serious as the MCL sprain he suffered last month.

He injured the knee making a save in the first period on a Blues’ power play.

“As the game went on in the second period it just got stiffer and stiffer,” Howard said. “I’m hoping short term. It’s not as serious as it last time in Tampa.”

Howard, who will get re-evaluated in a week, missed eight games after suffering the MCL sprain during practice.

“First and foremost is getting the knee healthy for this organization,” said Howard, who added he wasn’t concerned about missing the Olympics. “It is frustrating. You’re moving in the right direction, you feel you’re doing all the right things and we were doing all the right things. It’s just bad luck, I guess.”

Just had the weirdest thought for our top line when Dats returns. Sheahan centering Z and Pavel.

Posted by maltby18 on 01/21/14 at 03:54 PM ET
MoreShoot’s avatar

Just had the weirdest thought for our top line when Dats returns. Sheahan centering Z and Pavel.

Better: Z, Pav, and Sauce

Posted by MoreShoot on 01/21/14 at 03:57 PM ET

I like the Sheahan idea better. They’ll both happily go to the front of the net, but Riled Up is somewhat more tree-like and can take the beating better to slam home the rebounds than Tats. Plus, I see him being upright more often than Abby on the line, which leads to more opportunities.

I feel like Tatar needs the puck to be effective. So do Z and Datsyuk, but they have a history of working off of each other that recommends them as an effective duo. The three of them on the same line seems problematic to me.

I’d like to see Tatar and Nyquist play together consistently with either Andersson, Abdelkader or Helm, depending on healthiness and defensive effectiveness against various opponents. The Wings would be well off if Tatar and Nyquist could develop a smidge of the chemistry that the Andersson-Nyquist-Brunner line had last year, or in a best fathomable case scenario something like what the Wings were getting from the Filppula-Franzen-Samuelsson second line in the playoffs in 08. The two of them might be the cornerstone of the team’s offense moving forward, or they might be merely average second line players, but I feel like figuring out how to get them working well together is a near-must unless the Wings can somehow find a shooter that can capitalize on the stickhandling/work those guys do.

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